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Archbishop of Canterbury Enthroned

With its narrow lanes, Roman ruins, timbered pubs named for friars and pilgrims and its namesake tales, Canterbury is a place of lasting antiquity. Today it turned its sturdy ancient face to a lively, if less certain, future.

A ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral so rich in majesty and pageant that it is known as the ''enthronement'' formally welcomed the Most Rev. Rowan Williams as the new Archbishop of Canterbury, the 104th in a line that stretches back to St. Augustine in 596.

The cathedral traces its origins to the 11th century and was the site of the murder in 1170 of Archbishop Thomas à Becket, whose shrine became the destination of Geoffrey Chaucer's pilgrimage 200 years later.

Prince Charles and Prime Minister Tony Blair entered the high-vaulted nave of the gray stone sanctuary, the mother church of Anglican Christianity, along with more than 2,000 church and government figures dressed in traditional robes and wigs and miters.

Outside, however, a scene of more contemporary portent unfolded. Churchgoers and ministers upset with views expressed by the new archbishop that they found overly progressive paraded before the cathedral gates wearing black armbands.

These are troubled times for the Church of England as social pressures drive people away from the institutionalized church.

A new church-commissioned report on the past decade warned that there had been steep declines in Sunday attendance, baptisms, marriages and paid clergy. The study predicted that if trends continued, by the year 2030 Church of England attendance would be down to just 500,000, less than two-thirds of the current figure.

''The Anglicans of 2030, in a myriad of tiny congregations, could be struggling to maintain their buildings in a thinly spread church crushed by the weight of its own heritage,'' the report said.

Dr. Williams, 53, a Welshman who is the first Anglican leader from outside England since the church broke away from Rome in the 16th century, comes to the task with a record of balancing theological conviction with social activism.

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He is a Cambridge- and Oxford- educated scholar of philosophy and divinity and an author of 14 books, including two of poetry, but he is also at home with popular culture. He once cited ''The Simpsons'' as ''one of the most subtle pieces of propaganda around in the cause of sense, humility and virtue.''

He has suggested that he would reconsider Anglican policy barring the ordaining of homosexual priests or women as bishops, and he has signaled interest in beginning the process of separating the church from the state -- so-called disestablishment -- that would scrap laws passed since Henry VIII set himself up as supreme ruler of the church almost 500 years ago. Members of the clergy must swear allegiance to the crown, and 26 seats in the House of Lords are filled by bishops of the Church of England.

A self-described youthful ''hairy leftie'' and ''peacenik'' who was arrested in 1985 for reading psalms on the runway of an American air base in Britain, the full-bearded new archbishop has aggressively entered the political arena, challenging Mr. Blair's assertion of moral legitimacy for war in Iraq and castigating the United States for withdrawing from environmental treaties.

He called the American-led bombing of Afghanistan ''morally tainted,'' hit out at the capitalist ''market state,'' and attacked computer games, talent shows and the Walt Disney Company for exploiting young people's obsessions. In December, he gave a televised lecture attacking the government for reacting to consumer pressure rather than ethical values, saying it had reduced politics to ''instantaneous button-pushing responses.''

The ceremony today commemorated the beginning of his public ministry, though his election to the historic office was actually confirmed in December at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. In that short time, he has quickly become an active participant in national debates and a recognizable enough figure to become fodder for television comic impersonators.

He was forced to reject charges of paganism weeks ago after he was made an honorary druid for his contributions to the Welsh language and culture.

In his sermon today, Dr. Williams made it clear that in his new post he would not shrink from delivering provocative views from the pulpit. Christians, he said, should ''grieve and protest over'' such things as war, poverty, prejudice, abuse of children, neglect of the elderly, workplace humiliation and sexual greed.

''This is why the Christians will engage with passion in the world of our society and politics,'' he asserted, ''and -- it must be said -- out of a real grief and fear of what the human future will be if this does not come to light.''

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A version of this article appears in print on February 28, 2003, on Page A00010 of the National edition with the headline: Archbishop of Canterbury Enthroned. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe